Pulse of Lincoln: ‘No GP appointments, no walk-in-centre… what now?’

It’s final, the Lincoln Walk-In-Centre will close for good after February. Now the diagnosis is settling, we took the temperature of people in the city to find out how they’re taking the news.

Lincolnshire West Clinical Commissioning Group’s governing body voted through a decision to close the centre despite overwhelming public opposition on Wednesday.

The CCG’s own consultation exercise revealed 94% of the 3,000 people surveyed were against the closure and The Lincolnite heard strong opposition to the move from campaigners throughout the process.

Sydney Walsh, a University of Lincoln student, said:

“We’re at the university doctors and we cannot get an appointment for two or three weeks at times.

“When it’s a serious issue you need somewhere to go.

“The A&E is crowded enough at the moment and the walk-in-centre took a lot of people. It’s just going to make A&E absolutely horrific to deal with.”

“They’re all saying don’t use A&E unless you have to” said Robert Drury “But if you haven’t got the walk-in-centre then yeah, I’ll have to use it.”

But not everyone will miss the walk-in centre. One woman, who wished to only be named as Linda, told The Lincolnite her son had spent four hours at the walk-in-centre without being treated and thought that the closure would not be a big loss.

Starting in February the Walk-In-Centre will have its opening hours reduced to weekends only before closing for good at the end of the month.

The CCG argues that, according to their research, 95% of patients had ailments that could be treated elsewhere.

They say they will enhance their other services and raise awareness of alternative provisions.

An extension of the out of hours GP service has been promised from March 1 to the middle of April.